John Henry Newman was born in London on 21 February 1801 into an Anglican family. His mother was of Huguenot descent and his father, John Newman, a banker of tolerant religious outlook; his mother was Jemima Fourdrinier. He was the eldest of six children. In 1808 he entered Great Ealing School, where his intelligence was soon remarked. In 1816, as he finished at Ealing and his father's bank failed, he embraced radical Calvinist principles and even came to regard the Pope as Antichrist. In 1817 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, taking the Bachelor of Arts. In 1822 he was elected Fellow of Oriel College and formed a lasting friendship with Edward Bouverie Pusey.
On 13 June 1824 he was ordained deacon in the Church of England and became curate of St Clement's, Oxford. On 29 May 1825 he was ordained Anglican priest. From 1826 to 1832 he served as Tutor at Oriel, forming many students and working closely with Pusey, John Keble, and Richard Hurrell Froude. On 14 March 1828 he was appointed vicar of the university church of St Mary the Virgin, where his preaching made him widely known. In 1832 he accompanied Froude on a journey through southern Europe, visiting Rome, Malta, Corfu, and Sicily. At the English College in Rome he first met Nicholas Wiseman, later Archbishop of Westminster. During illness and trial he wrote the poem later published in Lyra Apostolica and the lines of "Lead, Kindly Light," expressing total surrender to Providence, which would show him his true mission.
On 14 July 1833 at Oxford he heard Keble's sermon "National Apostasy." From that moment the Oxford Movement took shape, with Newman as its leading figure. Between 1833 and 1841 Newman, Froude, Keble, Pusey, and William Palmer issued the Tracts for the Times; of the ninety tracts Newman wrote twenty-six, including the last, Tract 90, which sought to interpret the Thirty-Nine Articles in a Catholic sense. The outcry led the Bishop of Oxford to halt the series. Condemned by the Hebdomadal Board of the University and disowned by forty-two bishops, Newman resigned the university living. On 9 April 1842 he withdrew with friends to Littlemore, where he composed the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and his conversion to Catholicism reached maturity. In 1845 he was received into the Catholic Church.
In 1846 he went to Rome with other converts, without fixed plans. A memorandum of 1848 records that he considered the Redemptorists, yet he chose the Oratory of St Philip Neri, frequenting the Chiesa Nuova. Ordained Catholic priest on 30 May 1847, he received warm encouragement from Blessed Pius IX. Resolved to become an Oratorian, he asked the Pope leave to found an Oratory in Birmingham adapted to English needs. In 1847 he and six companions began the novitiate in a wing of Santa Croce; after several moves the first permanent house was established at Edgbaston on the edge of Birmingham. In 1848 a group under Father Frederick William Faber went to London and founded the second English Oratory. From 1854 Newman served four years as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin. In 1864 he published the Apologia pro vita sua. In 1878 Trinity College, Oxford, elected him its first Honorary Fellow.
At the suggestion of Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham, Pope Leo XIII created him cardinal of the title of San Giorgio in Velabro on 12 May 1879; Newman chose the motto Cor ad cor loquitur, "Heart speaks to heart," from St Francis de Sales. From 1889 his strength declined. On Christmas Day he celebrated his last public Mass; on 11 August 1890 he died in his room at Edgbaston. He wished his tomb to bear the words Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem—"Out of shadows and images into the truth."
His cause opened in Birmingham in 1958. Declared Venerable in 1991, he was beatified by Benedict XVI at Cofton Park, Birmingham, on 19 September 2010, and canonized by Pope Francis in St Peter's Square on 13 October 2019. After canonization many petitions sought for him the title of Doctor of the Church; he was proclaimed Doctor and named co-patron, with St Thomas Aquinas, of those engaged in education. His teaching on the development of doctrine, conscience, and the harmony of faith and reason has marked the Church's life, not least the Second Vatican Council.
May Saint John Henry Newman obtain for us the courage to follow truth wherever it leads and the grace to let heart speak to heart in charity.
Source: Causes of Saints Also listed Wikidata Causes of Saints GCatholic